I Cannot Run From My Family
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: A collection of Rodolphus/Rabastan ficlets based on lyrics by Amanda Palmer (and co.). Written for my Character Playlist Challenge on the HPFC Forum
1. Evelyn Evelyn

Author's Notes: Written for my own Character Playlist Challenge on the HPFC Forum, with Rodolphus/Rabastan and a themed playlist of Amanda Palmer (and co.) music.

This collection is certain to contain incest and murder, and likely to contain underage sex and a variety of other unpleasant things.

* * *

_We grew up closer than most (closer than anything, closer than anything), shared our bed and wore the same clothes_

_-Evelyn Evelyn-_

)O(

Sometimes Rodolphus wondered where he ended and his little brother began.

Memories of the two years of his life that had transpired before Rabastan was born were vague and hazy, and had an unreal quality about them, like an unremembered dream. One might have attributed that to his age and nothing more - after all, how many people truly remember what their life was like when they were two years old? - but Rodolphus thought it more likely that the distance of those memories was just another sign that he was not whole without Rabastan.

They were two halves of the same person.

There was never a time when Rabastan did not crawl into Rodolphus's bed, did not curl against him, did not nuzzle into his shoulder like a baby into its mother's breast. Never a time when Rodolphus was not more of a mother to Rabastan than their own mother was. A lesser brother might have resented having a child forever clinging to him, but Rodolphus never did, for he didn't feel right if he could not hear Rabastan's quiet, raspy breathing in his ear.

And it all might have remained well, if only people had not started their whispering.

If Rodolphus had ever been one to listen to rumours, he would have seen it coming. People simply didn't understand what it was to love someone in the way that Rodolphus loved Rabastan. Of course they would begin to suggest that there was something less than innocent about it. Still, Rodolphus's face heated and he shook with humiliation every time a critical eye landed on him and his brother. Doubtless, that only made people suspect more strongly. Rabastan wished he could shake them and scream at them– _How can you think that? He's only a child!_ I'm _only a child!_

He said nothing, and only hoped that the rumours would not reach Rabastan's ears. He prayed that no one would break his brother's innocence by accusing him of that sort of depravity.

Some rumour must have eventually reached Rabastan, or perhaps he sensed Rodolphus's fears. Perhaps he knew instinctively - after all, there had never been secrets between the two of them before, and Rodolphus did not know if he even _could_ keep a secret from Rabastan before he tried.

Rabastan whispered pitifully in his ear when the two of them lay bound in each other's arms in Rodolphus's bed.

"Don't leave me."

The words shook Rodolphus, and he instinctively tightened his hold around his little brother.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't leave because of what they say."

Perspiration broke across Rodolphus's brow and palms. He didn't need to ask Rabastan what he was talking about, though he would dearly have loved to believe that he was mistaking his meaning. _What they say. What they say about us._

"Don't you hate it?" he whispered instead, and Rabastan trembled against him like a leaf in a gale. "Don't you hate what they think of us?"

"I don't care," Rabastan whispered back. "Don't care about them, just you."

)O(

_Don't you feel like severing? (Everything's just come together at last)_


	2. Runs in the Family

_All day I've been wondering - what is inside of me? Who can I blame for it? I say it runs in the family._

_-Runs in the Family-_

)O(

If there was something wrong with Rodolphus and Rabastan for their relations, it was only the same disease of the mind that had afflicted their family as far back as anyone could remember. The Lestrange family tree was so interlaced with cousins marrying cousins that it could hardly be called a tree anymore. True, it had been hundreds of years since brothers and sisters could marry without being stricken from the tapestry that bore their names, but those tendencies ran in the blood regardless, passed down through generations that may have denied them in favour of decorum, but felt them nonetheless. If Rodolphus was seized from within by some mad and uncontrollable desire for his brother, it was a sin that was bred into him as surely as his grey eyes or his pale skin, as surely as dogs were bred for hunting.

He whispered that to Rabastan on the first night, when Rab still balked, still wanted to be someone the Lestranges could be proud of, in spite of his weakness. Earning pride from the Lestranges was difficult at the best of times - worse still for a second son, worse still for a boy half-crippled with disease. He was an unpleasant reminder to the older generations that disease was as much a part of their legacy as purity of blood. Diseases of the body were bad enough; Rabastan had been reluctant to saddle himself also with something that could be considered a disease of the mind.

Rodolphus had been forced to wheedle, to rationalize, to convince, and he had come far too close to begging for his own liking, but Rabastan had given in at last. A touch of guilt gnawed at Rodolphus to think that his brother might actually believe that incest made him _more_ of a Lestrange, and that it was then, somehow, good, but he tried to suppress that guilt for his own sake. After all, with Rabastan in his bed, he had what he wanted, and what he had tried so hard to get.

His father, he suspected, would be less willing to listen to his philosophizing on the subject.

He considered repeating the speech when he was dragged into his irate father's study by his ear one evening, after being caught entangled in Rabastan's arms in the library. They had been chaste, mercifully clothed, and doing nothing more than embracing, and so their mother insisted that they had done nothing wrong and so should not be punished, but while she might live in blissful denial, Rodolphus had looked into his father's eye and seen certainty there. He knew what his sons were doing, evidence or no.

"You _foolish_ boy," was the first thing he said when the study door latched behind them and he turned upon Rodolphus, red-faced and seething. "_Stupid_ boy, what do you think would have happened if you had been caught by someone else?"

Rodolphus said nothing, only stared down and to the side, distracting himself from his shame by watching the fire behind the grate.

"Did you ever give a thought to the shame you would bring upon the Lestranges?"

_More thoughts than you know, less shame than you know._

He struck Rodolphus hard across the face, and he reeled. He tasted blood where his teeth came down on his tongue, and tears sprang to his eyes - an automatic reaction. He hid them with a raised hand, under the guise of massaging the place where his father had hit him.

"Never forget!" He gripped him by his chin and jerked his head up forcing him to look him in the eye. "You are _nothing_ without the reputation of the Lestranges behind you." His fingers dug in, and his eyes burned with anger that bordered on feverish, but his voice dropped to a hiss. "If you bring dishonour upon our family name, then it is you and Rabastan who will suffer. Remember that."

)O(

_We tend to bruise easily, bad in the blood._


	3. The Killing Type

_I once stepped on a dying bird. It was a mercy killing._

_-The Killing Type-_

)O(

"He's only going to get worse." Rodolphus's mother's voice was soft and uncharacteristically pensive in his ear, a whisper so low that she might not have even been speaking to him if she were not leaning against him with her arms about his waist. The warmth and softness of her body should have been a comfort to him, but there was no comfort to be had when Rabastan was tossing and turning in the grip of his fever.

"Is that what the healers say?" Rodolphus's voice scratched and caught, and he tried to swallow back emotion.

"Yes." She put her chin against his shoulder, tightened her embrace around him. "They say his chances are very poor."

Tears stung Rodolphus's eyes. He desperately wanted to let them fall, but dared not with his mother there for fear of receiving a lecture on being an adult. He hated those lectures with a passion, and had already gotten more than one since Rabastan had fallen ill. _As if my brother being on his deathbed isn't cause for a few tears_.

"He's going to die?" He managed to force the words out of numb lips - half question, half statement of his worst fear.

"Slowly. Painfully."

Rabastan whimpered from the bed and turned over, burying his flushed face in his pillow. Rodolphus had been told that Rabastan was too feverish to know what was happening around him, but he feared terribly that his little brother had heard what their mother had just said. He wanted to break away, run to the bed and take Rabastan in his arms, but his mother held him still, and he had been forbidden to get too close to Rabastan for fear of him contracting the same disease.

"Rodolphus," she whispered. "He's only going to suffer for as long as he lives."

He twisted to look at her, but her expression was inscrutable, and she was staring at the bed, not making eye contact with him. Still, when her hand moved to his waist, to rest against his wand where it was kept tucked into his trouser pocket, a chill went through him, and he was quite sure that he understood her intended meaning.

He said nothing, and after a moment more, she broke away and left the room in silence. The latch clicked into place behind her.

Chills ran up and down Rodolphus's spine. He inched closer to the bed where Rabastan writhed in the grasp of some disease none of them understood.

He turned and looked up at him with bright and glassy eyes. No recognition registered on his face. His thin lips were unnaturally pale against the flush of his face, parted and trembling as he gasped for breath through a swollen throat. Half of Rodolphus wanted to cringe away, but he propelled himself forward and sat down on the edge of the bed. He stroked Rabastan's hair off his damp forehead, whispered soft lies like _It's going to be all right, Rab_. And felt the weight of his wand against his leg.

Rabastan's fever had mystified healers who were used to the superior constitutions most wizards had. They weren't supposed to fall victim to the sort of illnesses that killed Muggles. Rodolphus had heard the disdain in the Blacks' voices when they asked about Rabastan's condition and seen the flush that rose on his mother's face when she was forced to discuss it. Rabastan was a shame to the family. If he somehow managed to survive, no one would praise the miracle. They would all look at him with barely-veiled disgust - _Oh, you're the one who had a Muggle disease_.

Rabastan let out a piteous cry from the bed, and Rodolphus found his frail hand and squeezed it as tightly as he could without breaking the bones, delicate as a baby bird's bones.

When Rabastan had first fallen ill, Rodolphus had prayed at his bedside for hours – _don't leave me, Rab._ The healers' predictions had been grim then: a week to live, maybe two, maybe less. It had been three weeks now, and everyone expected him to fall dead at any moment. Everyone was _waiting_ for it.

Rabastan's eyes rolled back in his head and he arched off the bed, wracked with a fit of coughing. Blood burbled from between his lips, and Rodolphus wiped it away hurriedly with his handkerchief and balled it up in his hand. No one had told him that Rabastan was coughing up blood.

He could hardly bear to imagine his brother's suffering. What was it like to have blood pour into your lungs, to be unable to expel it except by coughing that only tore your throat, to be slowly drowning in your own blood?

_It would be kinder to end it now_.

Rodolphus gripped Rabastan's fragile fingers ever more tightly, and with his other hand, drew his wand.

He could give his little brother peace that he'd never have again in this life – not if he recovered within the hour, not if he suffered for another month. Why should he have to suffer through those trials when he was just going to die soon enough in any case?

Rodolphus did not delude himself that he was brave or honourable by nature, but, for his brother's sake, he would be brave enough to save him from needless suffering.

He placed his hand on Rabastan's sunken cheek, holding his burning head gently in place. Rabastan squeezed his eyes shut, and it was impossible to tell whether the glow around his eyes was perspiration or tears.

_Please, God, not tears_.

"Shh, Rab, it's all right," Rodolphus whispered, the same lie he'd been telling him for the past three weeks. Not that it mattered. He doubted that Rabastan could hear him.

He placed the tip of his wand against the deep hollow in Rabastan's throat, and Rabastan went still. His glazed eyes opened wide, and after a moment in which they rolled and did not focus, he turned them on Rodolphus.

It was the first time he had made eye contact with Rodolphus in more than a week, and his heart lurched painfully within his chest. _No, Rab, God, no, you're making it harder_.

"Rod…" Rabastan barely managed to croak the word out - it was more whisper than real speech, more movement of lips than anything else, and the _d_ was enough to tear another fit of coughing from Rabastan's lungs. Outside the room, there was the sound of hurried footsteps.

When the healer entered Rabastan's room, the boy was in the throes of another fit of coughing, blood seeping down his red cheek from the corner of his mouth, and his brother had his arms around him, whispering a stream of frantic comforts mixed with apologies.

)O(

_I'm not the killing type._


	4. The Time Has Come

Author's Notes: Also for the Defence Against the Dark Arts class for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Forum.

_Write about Dark wizards, preferably before or about what made them turn Dark._

* * *

_All of my blind ambition left me deaf with perfect vision_

_-The Time Has Come-_

)O(

When Rabastan told his brother that he had taken the Dark Mark, he had already fabricated a glorious fantasy of being congratulated, praised and lauded for his bravery, kissed in frenzied celebration. He should have known that he was not going to get any such joyous reaction, but he did not expect the anger and horror that broke over his brother's face.

"Don't you _realize_, Rab?" Rodolphus grabbed him by his shoulders too roughly. Rabastan choked on his breath, but Rodolphus paid his distress no mind and shook him violently.

"What do you think the Dark Lord is going to give you if you join him? Haven't you been paying attention to his work? Haven't you seen what happens to his Death Eaters when he decides he doesn't want them anymore? I won't be able to protect you from him – when he decides he wants you dead, there's not a thing I'll be able to do to shield you, and you should know it! This is suicide, Rabastan!"

"He won't decide he doesn't want me," Rabastan barely managed to rasp without coughing. "I'll serve him well. He'll reward me."

"What sort of rewards?" Rodolphus demanded. "What can he give you that you don't already have?"

Rabastan glared at him. He tried to look superior, but inside, he was wilting. He had so believed that Rodolphus would congratulate him, would be _impressed_ by his decision to join the Death Eaters. It was supposed to be an honourable thing to do; that was what people said.

And his brother's approval was the only real reward he had wanted.

"Your wife–"

Rodolphus cut him off. "Her! I couldn't stop her from laying down her life for him if I wanted to – you don't really think I have the first bit of control over her, do you?"

Rabastan was about to protest that Rodolphus didn't have any control over him either, that he was adult, but it would have been a lie, and Rodolphus carried on before he could say it in any case.

"Besides, it's no matter to me if she gets herself killed! I'll hardly miss her! But Rab, if _you_…"

Rabastan's throat tightened. He bent forward in a fresh fit of coughing that tore at his lungs and made his vision swim. Rodolphus swore and clutched at him, pulling him down onto the couch and rocking him half-frantically back and forth as he gasped for air.

"I'm sorry, Rabastan, I'm sorry, didn't mean…" His voice thickened slightly, and he pulled Rabastan so tightly against him that his arms almost hurt around his thin waist.

Rabastan leaned his hea against Rodolphus's shoulder, resting on his broad chest. Allowing himself to melt into his brother's arms relaxed his lungs and eased the coughing.

"There, you're all right..." Rodolphus ran a hand up his side, rubbing away the stitch that formed there from the way he gasped for air when he coughed. He continued mumbling, more to himself than to Rabastan, "Shouldn't have said those things, shouldn't have gotten angry at you…"

Rabastan made a little _mmm_ sound to indicate that he heard and forgave, and Rodolphus swore again, quietly.

"But, oh, Rab, _why_? Why are you putting yourself in danger like this? _Why are you doing this to me_?"

"Thought you would approve…" Rabastan mumbled, looking down at his hands where they were bunched in Rodolphus's shirt. "Thought you'd be proud…"

"Proud of my little brother for doing something that's going to get him killed?" Rodolphus's voice cracked. "And what am I going to do without you then?"

It was a question for which there was no answer, and both brothers were silent for a terribly long time before Rodolphus spoke with a quiet, unimpassioned certainty.

"I'll just have to join, won't I? If you're going to get killed, I'll die with you."

)O(

_You have the choice now, so decide if you want in or out_


End file.
